Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia News: The residents of the floating villages in Kampong Chhnang are in fact extremely reluctant to move to their designated relocation area because they are fishermen by trade and the new area is far from the river, and at present there is no infrastructure, no schools and no public services there.
They have asked to remain living close to the riverbank in the meantime, but authorities say that most of the land along the river is already owned.

The authorities insist that the motive for the relocation of the inhabitants of the floating villages is to make the environment cleaner so it will attract more tourists. They do not say whether they are floating the idea of floating casinos.

Username Taken wrote: ↑Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:55 pm Getting rid of a genuine cultural tourist attraction, to be replaced by plastic paddle-boats and the like.

But , But , But the factory that will make the plastic paddle-boats will employ thousands of Cambodians. It's all about jobs for the poor people.

November 9, 2018
River dwellers’ way of life under threat
Kampong Chhnang city, Kampong Chhnang province – Kim Heng only knows life on the water and her family of five has invested everything into their way of life here, where she owns a small floating home on the Tonle Sap river.

However, her way of life is under threat as authorities move to evict thousands of Vietnamese and Cham families living on the river, citing negative environmental impacts.

“If we live on dry land, we’d have to leave our boat. A thief can steal its battery and engine,” Ms Heng says. “We tried living on land once and a thief stole a few batteries from our boat. And another thing is that we are poor. We do not have the money to build a house and a toilet on dry land. We have to continue living on the water.”

“I still live on water because there’s a lot of fish here,” she adds. “Plus the authorities haven’t objected, so I’ll just continue to stay here until they ask us to move again.”

Floating houses make convenient homes for fishermen living along the river in Kampong Chhnang. With floating homes, ethnic Vietnamese fishermen are able to easily migrate from one fishing spot to another.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50548896/r ... er-threat/

If they are mostly Vietnamese by heritage they will not have documents?

frank lee bent wrote: ↑Fri Nov 09, 2018 5:12 pm If they are mostly Vietnamese by heritage they will not have documents?

I guess, or else the documents will be "fake", or they will have been issued "fraudulently". (In English, that means that the government has decided that most official documents previously issued to Vietnamese residents by the Cambodian authorities are no longer valid. )

Smith calls for fairness in evicting VN families
09 November 2018 | 07:46 ICT
The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia, Rhona Smith, on Thursday called on the government to be fair and transparent when handling the issue of the evicted Vietnamese families in Kampong Chhnang province.

She made the statement during a press briefing at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the last day of her 11-day visit to the Kingdom, where she had met senior government officials, representatives of civil society and members of the diplomatic community.

After travelling to the province to investigate the relocation plan, she concluded that there is “undoubtedly” a need to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for the victims and to conserve the Tonle Sap lake and rivers resources.

“The [Kampong Chhnang] provincial authority also recognised the need to ensure that the relocation plan will not leave the people worse off, which would go against government’s effort in poverty reduction,” she said.

She added that some of the affected people are among the poorest in the region and that the majority of them do not have identification documents granting them access to basic services and rights.


Kampong Chhnang provincial deputy governor, Sun Sovannarith, said the authority has clear plans in preparation for the relocation.
“There would be no problem for their children to access education because [school] is close to their houses and there is no discrimination against the Vietnamese people,” he said.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... n-families

NGO Urges Cambodia’s Interior Ministry to Intervene in Eviction of Vietnamese From Tonle Sap Lake
2018-11-14
A nongovernmental organization in Cambodia on Wednesday called on the country’s Interior Ministry to intervene in the eviction of more than 2,000 ethnic Vietnamese living on the Tonle Sap Lake, saying land demarcated for their relocation lacks the infrastructure necessary to support them.

Authorities have said that 2,300 ethnic Vietnamese will be moved from their “floating village” on the lake and settled on land about one kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) away in Kampong Chhnang province, while other families will be relocated to the province’s Rolea B'ier district, where media reports say a local Vietnamese association has bought land for them to live on.

Khmer-Vietnamese Association President Sim Chi told RFA’s Khmer Service in an interview Wednesday that the sites lack infrastructure such as a hospital or medical clinic, as well as access to water and electricity, and that the impoverished villagers can’t afford to set up such services on their own.

He noted that Kampong Chhnang provincial authorities began relocating the villagers early last month and expect to complete the move by the end of the year.

“I’ve asked the Interior Ministry to intervene in the case—we want the ministry to give the villagers some time until the provincial authorities have built enough infrastructure at the new location,” he said.

Addressing comments made Tuesday by government spokesman Phay Siphan, who said authorities will also review the status of Vietnamese families moved from the lake to ensure they are legally present in Cambodia, Sim Chi told RFA that the villagers had lived in the country “for a long time.”
Members of their families born in Cambodia began registering for permanent residential status in the country in 2014, he added.

While Sim Chi refused to comment on whether authorities plan to force villagers found to be living illegally in Cambodia to return to Vietnam, he noted that anyone living in Cambodia for more than seven years is entitled to apply for citizenship.

“These ethnic Vietnamese have been living in Cambodia for many generations,” he said.

The move to evict the residents of the “floating village” follows a campaign two years ago that saw thousands repatriated to Vietnam from their homes on the Tonle Sap, where global warming and overfishing have reduced the seasonal inflow and outflow of water on the environmentally threatened lake.
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambod ... 60710.html

Immigrants are ruining the whole country

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he noted that anyone living in Cambodia for more than seven years is entitled to apply for citizenship.